


light your own

by Lyre (Lyrecho)



Series: three real options [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe, Discussion In Notes About Content Warnings So Please Read, Gen, Lucina Has A Bad Time, Oneshot, What If I Take The Bad Future And Make It Worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-10-20
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:21:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27112537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrecho/pseuds/Lyre
Summary: But it doesn’t have to be this way, Nah had said.It does not have to be this way, Naga had confirmed.“It will not be this way,” Lucina promises. “I challenge this fate.”Lucina trades the past for the future, and trades her crown for a mask.|Tumblr||Twitter|
Relationships: Chrom & Lucina (Fire Emblem), Cynthia & Lucina (Fire Emblem), Lucina & Marc | Morgan
Series: three real options [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978966
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	light your own

**Author's Note:**

> Notes of Note:
> 
> \- This AU is one I have been turning over in my mind for a while; I won't go into detail here, but it diverges heavily from canon -- especially the original timeline, so keep that in mind. Not everything is explained in this specific fic but will be in due time.
> 
> \- Some ages are funky in this AU because I do what I want (namely, my HC of which seconds gen kids are born when and how old they all are when they actually go back in time). Chrom is older in the future-timeline (twenty instead of eighteen) because I don't like War With Teenagers all that much if I can avoid it and Lucina is older in general because of the mild horror of her being older than her parents.
> 
> \- Series and fic title taken from [here.](https://musterni-illustrates.tumblr.com/tagged/sh) (Thanks Rar for linking this to me.)
> 
> \- SEXUAL ASSAULT CONTENT WARNING: There's absolutely nothing graphic or even discussed about it, but it's heavily implied in two brief places that both Nah and Morgan were conceived non-consensually. I can confirm that this is the case for (original timeline) Nah, but I promise the incident itself will never be graphically discussed or shown. For Morgan...it's a bit more complicated (we only see Lucina's immediate reaction to the situation) but I promise to handle it with nuance and no graphic detail when we eventually get to the truth behind original timeline Chrom/Grima. I'm very sorry if this sort of subject matter, even in non-graphic detail, disturbs you, and understand if this means you will not be reading this fic. Thank you for your time.

When Lucina is eight and Cynthia seven, their father goes to war.

They’ve grown up on tales of war; tales of his exploits -- the glories of the Shepherds that had come to pass long before their time. The two princesses of Ylisse have grown up in a time of peace, the battles their parents had fought fairy tales in their mind, as fantastic and far away as stories of the Hero and Saint Kings.

When Lucina is eight and Cynthia seven, their father goes to war.

He never comes back again.

He leaves, armoured in ivory and gilt, Falchion fashioned to his side, Aunt Robin on his left and Uncle Frederick on his right. Mother kisses all three on the cheek and tells them to come home safely. Father smiles and tugs them all close. Aunt Robin laughs -- and somehow, it’s a strange thing, to hear Aunt Robin laugh, when she smiles less than Aunt Tharja does -- and promises she’ll watch Father’s back.

“I couldn’t trust him to better hands,” Mother says, light and teasing, but warm and firm.

The Shepherds march out, with Mother staying behind to keep the home fires burning. The Shepherds march out, with Father, Aunt Robin, and Uncle Frederick leading the charge.

Only Uncle Frederick returns to lead them back.

-x-

When Lucina is thirteen, Aunt Cordelia dies. Mother is a mess, pale and shaking and detached from the world, and Lucina has not seen her grieve this strongly since Father’s loss.

She does not know how to help her.

Cynthia cries when they hear the news, but tries to keep up a smile, like she’s always keeping up a smile.  _ Sev will need us, _ she says.  _ We can’t break, Lu. _

Severa is a mess. A hateful, angry, violent mess. She wrestles Lucina into the ground in a way she hasn’t since they were truly children, wild and untrained. Her teeth are bared and her grip is tight. Her fingers flutter over Lucina’s shoulders as she pins her down, as if aching to slide up further and lock around her neck. Squeeze until she breaks.

_ We can’t break, Lu. _

Aunt Cordelia dies, and Mother fades. Severa burns.

Their family is dying, and the world is breaking, and it hasn’t stopped since all Frederick had managed to bring home of Father was the Falchion.

When Lucina is thirteen, she takes up her father’s sword.

-x-

When Lucina is seventeen, her mother dies.

She gently places a hand on her sister’s shoulder.

“We can’t break, Cynthia,” she says.

When Lucina is seventeen, they crown her as Exalt, and the crown weighs heavy on her brow. It weighs heavy on her soul.

_ We cannot break. _

If they are what remains, then they must  _ remain. _

Nine years earlier, their father had gone to war, and never returned. His sword at her side is the sharp, deadly weight of that legacy.

“We can’t break,” Cynthia agrees, voice ruined with her tears, “but we can’t withstand this, either. This -- whatever this is that’s happening. Whatever higher power that’s determined to take everyone we love from us. We can’t just stand here and  _ take it, _ Lu!”

“We won’t,” she promises. “We’ll find out what’s behind all of this, and we’ll  _ fight.” _

-x-

When Lucina is twenty, the truth of the world’s decline is revealed.

Not famine, or pestilence, or any human hatred or greed. Divine and terrible, twisted and glorious, the Fell Dragon looms over Plegia.

Grima has returned.

-x-

“We can’t fight  _ that,” _ Nah says, shaken and small and the second-eldest of all of them, even if she doesn’t look it. Even if she doesn’t act it, either -- she’d been raised on the road, just her and her child-like mother for so long, before the Shepherds had found them in cages and brought them back to Ylisse, where they’d be safe. She was Lucina’s first playmate, before Cynthia had ever even been born, and she’s always been the first to follow faithfully by Lucina’s side.

Not this time. Lucina is twenty-two and so is Nah, and for the first time since its full awakening two years prior, Grima has moved. It lives in the skies, now, and Nah hasn’t transformed in weeks, too terrified of drawing its attention to them if it senses her Divine Dragon blood better when she doesn’t don a human form.

After all, with their God’s movement, the Grimleal have come, spreading out from Plegia like the plague that they are. Not a week earlier, they’d had to flee the stronghold they’d had setup for months, lest they be caught.

It kills Lucina, deep inside, to be running and running and always running, but it’s she who wields Falchion, and if what Nah has told her of Naga’s words is the truth, then it is she alone who can seal away Grima, once they’ve found the gemstones and completed the Awakening. Both Cynthia and Owain refuse to so much as breathe near the sword.

Technically, Lucina supposes, a child of her own could complete the task, should she fail to do so, but she is under no illusions in regards to her ability to survive this world long enough to bear and raise a child.

She’s under no illusions in regards to how long this world itself has left, after all.

“We can’t  _ not,”  _ she says gently, and when Nah looks away, shamefaced, she lets her gaze rest on the rest of her friends. Her family. Cynthia and Owain, Severa and Inigo right behind them, Kjelle and Brady and Laurent and Yarne and Gerome and Noire. All trusting her, all staring at her with such faith in their eyes, even as their fear shines through, as clear as day.

_ We cannot break. _

“You are right, though, Nah, in saying that we are not yet prepared to fight Grima,” Lucina admits, twenty-two and with the weight of the world on her shoulders, twenty-two and yet knowing nothing but loss. “We must first complete the Awakening.” Her hands curl into fists as she says it. Her nails bite half-moons into her palms.

“Easier said than done,” Severa scoffs. “Do we even know where these gems  _ are?” _

“We do,” Laurent confirms with a nod. “That was the easy part. The hard part…” He trails off, and looks to Lucina.

She sighs, and swallows, and forces her next words out. “They’re everywhere,” she says, “All over the continent. So, to make sure we can get them all in a...timely manner --”

“I swear to the Hero King himself, if the next words out of your mouth are  _ we need to split up, _ I will slap you silly, Lucina.”

Lucina smiles weakly at her friend. “Severa,” she says softly, “it is the only way.”

“A-and if we lose?” Noire’s voice breaks into the sudden silence that falls behind Lucina’s own solemn words, and she flinches as the attention of the group settles on her. “I mean --”

“Then we know we went down fighting,” Lucina says firmly. “Fighting for our world, fighting for the future, and fighting for what our parents believed in.” She very carefully does not say  _ we’re already losing, and we have been for years, and we lose a little more each day. _

“We’ll have to discuss who goes where,” she adds on, “but I’ll be the one leading whichever group is going after Sable.”

Inigo raises a brow. “And why is that?”

“Because it resides in Plegia,” Laurent says quietly. “Likely, it’s in the hands of the Grimleal’s High Priestess.” A mysterious woman they knew almost nothing about, who had taken charge of Plegia well over a decade ago, now.

“Sounds dangerous,” Inigo says, coy and deadly sharp, grin a challenge as much as it was a promise. “Count me in.”

When Lucina is twenty-two, the eldest that remains, a hero’s sword at her side and a hero’s burden on her shoulders but a fearful child’s heart beating in her chest, she accepts that she is going to die, likely before she sees her twenty-third year.

She decides that this is acceptable, if it means sealing Grima away --

\-- if it means that the future is saved, and the world gets to live.

-x-

When Lucina is twenty-three, they’ve gathered all of the gemstones but Sable. Even after a year of cautious trips into Plegia, they’ve never gotten in deep enough, never far enough. They’ve never found it.

“Grandmother Naga can’t speak with me much anymore,” Nah confesses. “Not with Grima as strong as it is now. But she did manage to get me a message through my dreams last night -- though she warned it may well be the last one.” She closes her eyes, as if to concentrate. “Sable is needed to perform the Awakening, yes,” she says. “But...with the power of just the others alone, if you cannot reach Sable...she thinks there is something else she may be able to do.”

Lucina hesitates. “One last trip,” she says. “One last try, and if it doesn’t work...we’ll go to Naga.”

Nah nods.

When Lucina is twenty-three, she strikes for the heart of Plegia. She’s grateful for it being situated in a desert, for once -- her hair, Exalt-blue, is too recognisable to not be covered, and she cannot bring herself to cut it, or dye it. Hair like her mother, hair like her father. With Ylisse a burnt-down ruin, it’s all she has left from them besides her sister and her sword. Out here in the sands, no one is looking twice at a girl wrapped head to toe. It’s just smart.

On this trip, Owain and Gerome have come with her -- the split up at the gates, with plans to meet up at nightfall on the city outskirts. If Lucina arrives there alone, and they do not show up in time, she is to abandon them, and run on to Naga by herself. She, alone, is the piece that truly matters -- after all, she wields the Falchion.

She hates it.

When Lucina is twenty-three, she strikes for the heart of Plegia, and finds herself inside a disturbingly empty palace. The halls vibrate with a silent echo as she stalks through them. The air is stagnant with the sense that there is no longer anyone remaining here who is truly  _ alive. _

So, of course, that is when Lucina runs into a ghost.

She nearly runs him through, when she turns the corner, and he is standing there. At first she isn’t sure what stays her hand -- the suddenness of his appearance, after how oppressively empty the rest of the palace had been? The white streaking his hair, the exhaustion written into him with every line carved into his face? The shock, hope and fear that fill his expression as he registers her standing there, as he meets her eyes?

She has no time, no presence of mind, to turn any of these thoughts over with logic, to poke at them, because there, on his shoulder, is the Brand of the Exalt.

Twenty-three and eight all over again, Lucina stumbles back. She grasps for Falchion blindly.

“Lucina,” her father whispers. “Oh, Lucina.”

She blinks. Her vision swims. Tears, or light-headedness? She can’t tell. Can’t breathe. Can’t do anything but choke out “ _ Father.” _

Like an echo, a voice, young, rings out from behind her. “Father?”

Chrom’s eyes --  _ her father’s eyes _ \-- flicker to the call automatically, and rest over Lucina’s shoulder. “Morgan,” he says. Lucina turns.

A boy stands behind her, shorter than her and with the last vestiges of baby fat still clinging to his cheeks. His hair is Exalt-blue, and somehow, even though she hasn’t seen the woman in fifteen years, recognition hits the moment their eyes meet, and her mind registers sharp angles and deep violet and whispers  _ Aunt Robin. _

Lucina remembers rumours that she’d had to hear endlessly growing up, about how her father had proposed to Aunt Robin and been turned down, about how her mother had been a second-choice rushed political marriage to give the people of Ylisse something to cheer about, and how, after her father had vanished, those rumours had swarmed to life once again, all the more vicious, dripping with venom about how her father had faked his death to finally elope with his tactician.

The boy tilts his head, and the Brand of the Exalt is as clear on the hollow of his throat as the Mark of Grima is on his right eye, opposite to her own.

Something fundamental in the foundations of Lucina’s world shifts, and she feels sick to her stomach. Sick to her very soul.

Suddenly, she has all the pieces. Suddenly, everything makes sense.

The boy looks at her with curiosity, as if none of the revelations that have just shaken the core of her reality have so much as alighted on his mind. Does he even know who she is? He has to see the Brand of the Exalt in her eye --

“Father,” he says slowly, and  _ oh, _ he even  _ sounds _ like Aunt Robin, with that accent that’s not truly Plegian, twisted and buried under the sounds of the rest of the continent. He sounds like Owain, before puberty hit him.

He sounds, Lucina imagines, like Father once had.

“Father,” he says, “who is this?”

“This is Lucina,” Father says, tired and old but she can  _ hear _ the pride, and something in her heart sings even as she wants to curl up and weep. “Your eldest sister, Morgan.”

She flinches, a little, at the vocal confirmation of what she has already surmised, what she has already seen. Morgan does not look  _ that _ young -- a child, yes, but fourteen or fifteen, she’d presume, no younger. That means that he has to have been conceived almost immediately after Father’s disappearance.

Bile burns at the back of Lucina’s throat at the thought. She can’t imagine Father betraying Mother like that, no matter if he truly had loved Aunt Robin first, and the Mark of Grima shining in Morgan’s eye tells a story all its own. She knows how Nah was conceived, and she feels ill. She does not want to think about this.

It’s only how deep she is buried in her own thoughts that keep her from flinching when Morgan’s hand, small and cold, curls into her own, limp by her side. Mute, she stares at him, eyes wide.

He smiles. She suppresses a shudder.

“Lucina,” he repeats, and his voice shapes her name like a vow, something sacred and distant. “Father and Mother have told me so much about you!” When he says  _ mother, _ acid eats at the back of Lucina’s throat until all she can taste is the tang of copper, until she’s genuinely surprised she is not choking on blood.

“Where is she,” she says, breathes around red, and repeats: “Where is your mother?”

Morgan just keeps smiling at her, the Mark in his eye burning like a brand into her own vision, but behind her, Lucina can feel her father tense. She looks over her shoulder at him, and his gaze is fixed on Falchion. His skin looks nearly grey, and when he finally looks back up to meet her eyes once more, he looks  _ scared. _ Afraid. Of  _ her. _

When Lucina was eight, she’d believed her Father to be the strongest man alive. That there was nothing in the world that could have broken him.

When Lucina is twenty-three, she stands in the heart of Plegia, a brother at her side and a father at her back, and has to face the fact that all this time she has been  _ wrong. _

She has never met a man as thoroughly broken as her father, and with that thought, that acknowledgement, something in her breaks, too.

“She isn’t here, Lucina,” Father says, and he sounds so, so tired. “If she was, you’d be dead.” He says it like it’s the only truth he knows -- a fact as immutable as the colour of the sky.

“She’ll be back, though,” Morgan promises, voice eager. “Soon, probably -- in a day or so?”

“Lucina will be long gone by then, Morgan,” Father says, “as will you.”

Morgan blinks, and jerks back from where he’d been leaning further into her, face lit up with the joy of a teenager being handed attention from someone new and shiny. Dismay takes over his expression. “What?”

Lucina can agree with that.  _ What? _

Father meets her eyes. For the first time since she’d encountered him, something close to life sparks in his gaze. “I don’t know what you’re planning,” he says, soft and low, “and I don’t want to know, so please don’t tell me -- but I do know this. Morgan isn’t safe here.” His eyes briefly flicker to Morgan, and Lucina thinks of the Mark in his eye, before Father is turning his attention towards her once more. “Lucina,” he says --  _ pleads. _ “He’s your brother.”

Her throat feels tight, like she’s trying to swallow a rock while Severa’s hands are locked around her neck once again.

“You’re my  _ father,” _ she says, voice rough; a rasp.

Father smiles, soft and sad and the most tragic thing Lucina has ever seen. “Your father died a long time ago, Lucina, and I’m so sorry for that,” he whispers. “And I’m so sorry to ask for even more from you, when you’ve already given so much more than you should have had to -- but please, Lucina, save my son. Save your  _ brother.” _

_ Save him from his mother, the woman I cannot abandon.  _

_ Save him from his blood, because he never asked to be born with Grima running through his veins. _

_ Save him from himself, because he is a child, and he deserves more in life than what this world can offer him. _

_ Save him because he is my son, and your brother. _

_ Save him because you can love him, Lucina. _

All this, he does not say, but Lucina can hear. And Lucina knows. She does not understand, she does not  _ agree, _ but she knows.

Morgan’s hand is still in hers. It’s not as cold as it was, now -- warmed over by her tight grip. He doesn’t even come up to her shoulder. He’s shorter than Cynthia. So small. Her little brother.

She takes in a shaky breath. “I will,” she promises.”I’ll save him, Father.” It’s the closest her father will come to allowing himself to be saved, after all.

Father closes his eyes, and something in his shoulders shifts, as if Lucina’s words -- her vow -- have lifted the weight of the world off of his back. “Thank you, Lucina,” he says, and when he opens his eyes once more, unshed tears shine in them. “I love you,” he says, simple, but true. “I love you both, and Cynthia, too. More than life itself.” He reaches forward, to cup Lucina’s cheek, and she goes still as she feels her father’s touch for the first time since she was a child. The first time in fifteen years.

A gentle thumb brushes away a tear she hadn’t realised she’d let fall. She’s shaking, she notices -- shaking, as Morgan’s hand falls from her own and her father tugs her into his chest.

“You deserved so much more from me,” he breathes, “than one sword and a world full of troubles.”

Arms raise up, to grip back tight. Through tears, Lucina finds her voice. “You have given me so much more,” she says, thinking of Cynthia at home...and Morgan, behind her, “than just one sword, Father.”

“It’s still not enough. It will never be enough, Lucina.”

She pulls back, and tries to smile for him. “It’s enough for me.”

He presses a kiss to her forehead, and she is eight years old again, eight years old and being tucked into bed by her parents, clamouring for a bedtime story. 

She wants to ask him to come with her -- to flee with them, too, but she knows to voice this desire would just be cruelty. She does not understand it, but she understands her father has made his choice, and it isn’t the one she has made.

Hope and despair. The future and the past. Fight and surrender. This is, she supposes, where she finally diverges from his legacy, after years of upholding it as her ideal.

“...I love you,” she says finally, because it’s all she  _ can _ say.

He smiles. “Goodbye, Lucina,” he says. “Goodbye, Morgan.”

He says no more.

When Lucina makes to move, to leave, she expects Morgan to linger. She expects that she’ll have to take his hand in her own once more, and drag him out behind her -- but he follows easily, silent. He doesn’t look happy about leaving his father behind...but he doesn’t look too upset about it, either.

She chooses not to question it. Her mind whispers  _ Sable, _ but at this point, she’s just too emotionally drained to linger in this place any longer. Nah had said that Naga had proposed another way, one that they already have the power for. It will have to do.

“It will be a long trip, Morgan,” she says softly, breaking the weighty silence that has fallen between them. “I hope you are up for it.”

He startles, before smiling. Lucina has to hold back a flinch. He smiles just like Aunt Robin had, in those rare occasions she’d been anything but melancholy. “I can handle it,” he promises. “Sister.”

Lucina takes in a deep breath, shaky and nervous, and tells herself to stop being so jumpy. “Good.”

When Lucina is twenty-three, she meets her younger brother for the first time, and leads him out from Plegia.

When Lucina is twenty-three, Morgan is fifteen, and their meeting heralds the end of their world.

-x-

On Lucina’s twenty-fourth birthday, she looks the Goddess Naga in the eyes, and, heart in her throat, tells her she’s chosen to destroy the world.

Rebirth from death. Creation traded for destruction. The end of one timeline is the salvation of another. This future has fallen, and victory is lost.

_ But it doesn’t have to be this way, _ Nah had said.

_ It does not have to be this way, _ Naga had confirmed.

“It will not be this way,” Lucina promises. “I challenge this fate.”

Naga smiles, soft and benevolent and so like her mother Lucina wants to cry.

“It is that which I love about humanity,” Naga confides. “Even in the darkest times, your hope springs eternal. It never dies.” She reaches out, and tucks a lock of hair behind Lucina’s ear -- she had it tucked and pinned to hide the band of her mask, but some pesky bits kept falling out of place. “Keep that fire of yours burning, child,” she says. “You will need its warmth, in the days to come.” She steps back. “I am ready when you are,” she says. 

Lucina bows, deep. Arrayed behind her are her friends -- her family,  _ her _ Shepherds. Nah and Cynthia, Severa and Owain and Inigo, Kjelle and Yarne, Gerome and Brady and Laurent and Noire, and even Morgan, so new and unfamiliar and yet still a part of them. “We’re ready,” she says.  _ No regrets. _

“I wish you luck,” Naga says, and the world turns white. “Safe travels, my children. The future of the world...is in all of your hands.”

On Lucina’s twenty-fourth birthday, she destroys the world.

But it’s okay. Because the future can be changed, and there is hope for  _ this _ world.

_ Who are you? _ Her father asks, gratitude and suspicion warring in his face as his hand rests on the hilt of Falchion. He’s younger than Lucina’s ever seen him -- he’s what, nineteen? Twenty? Hell, he’s younger than she is, right now -- and Aunt Robin is by his side, and she tries not to let that sting as she sees how she steps up to guard him. 

She sends up a prayer to Naga, and to her ancestors.  _ Give me strength, _ she pleads.

She gives the name Marth, and slips away into the night when Uncle Frederick comes cantering in, frantic. No one notices her leave.

On Lucina’s twenty-fourth birthday, she sleeps under the stars, taking in the sight of a sky unmarred by Grima for the first time in years.

_ There is hope. This world can be saved. _

On Lucina’s twenty-fourth birthday, she drifts to sleep alone -- but without nightmares.

_ This world can be saved. _


End file.
